Displaying items by tag: Russia

Russia: Igor Nikolenko has been appointed as the new general director of EuroCement's CJSC Kavkazcement. Igor Nikolenko was born in Belgorod in 1965. He graduated from Belgorod Technological Institute of Building Materials in Mechanical Engineering in 1990 and then worked in the Belgorod cement plant.

Kavkazcement is one of the largest cement plants in southern Russia with a production capacity of 3.1Mt/yr. The raw material base is limestone from the Ust-Dzhegutinsky mine and clay from Karachay-Cherkessia. The company became part of EuroCement in 2004.

Russia: Andrey Nesen has been appointed as the new director of Voskresenskcement plant, a Lafarge subsidiary. Nesen will oversee production and personnel development, the upkeep of corporate safety standards and will control implementation of the plant's social projects. Andrey Nesen previously occupied the position of Voskresenskcement's operations director, production manager and director of the production analysis department.

One of the ideas aired by several speakers at last week's 6th Brazilian Cement Congress was that using cement as a construction material is inherently a sustainable option.

The reasons for this included the durability of cement's construction products and the role cement plays in improving the living standards of a country. For example, under the onslaught of extreme weather like hurricanes, concrete structures are more likely to remain standing. Or, for a country like Brazil with sections of society living in long-term 'temporary' buildings in its favelas or shanty towns, providing affordable cement to help the country build better housing for its inhabitants is the only sustainable future that could be considered.

Perhaps in line with this concept of cement-as-sustainable-construction-material we see Semen Indonesia this week announcing expansion plans in three countries in South and Southeast Asia.

In West Sumatra a Semen Indonesia subsidiary has started building a 3Mt/yr cement plant in Padang. Then in Bangladesh Semen Indonesia revealed its intention to buy a 1Mt/yr plant. Finally, the state-owned Indonesian cement producer said that its Semen Gresik subsidiary was planning to build a new cement plant in Central Java at Rembang in June 2014. From previous press releases we can see that both new plants are FLSmidth builds. Both orders were announced in early 2014. Each has a capacity of 8000t/day.

The plans to expand outside of Indonesia echo reports that Semen Indonesia was set to buy a minority share in a Myanmar cement producer. Although the producer was unnamed as of early May 2014, Semen Indonesia CEO Dwi Soetjipto valued the stake at US$30m and the producer's production capacity at 1.5Mt/yr in comments to the Jakarta Globe.

Altogether the two new plants in Indonesia will place Semen Indonesia's total cement production capacity at 40Mt/yr by 2017 according to company figures. This would be enough to place the company within the top 20 of the world's largest cement producers by production capacity following the research from Global Cement's 'Top 75 global cement companies'.

In a nice coincidence, the company with a production capacity of 40Mt/yr on that list was Eurocement. Last week the Russian cement producer announced that it had signed contracts worth Euro387m with Chinese companies - including Sinoma, CNB, Sinomach and CAMC Engineering Co - to add 17Mt/yr cement production capacity across six plants in Russia. Another six or seven more construction agreements for cement plants are also expected to be signed in the coming months.

Certainly for the countries Semen Indonesia is focusing on – Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar, with low gross domestic product per capita – providing the raw material for stronger and more durable buildings covers some of the sustainability bases. Yet if all these new plants only use fossil fuels and are subject to few environmental restrictions then that undermines some of this. However, whether all this expansion is sustainable or not, the cement industry never remains stationary.

Eurocement recently trumpeted the production of two new types of cement at its Podgorensky plant in Voronezh Region. A focus on standards follows a self-declared offensive being taken by the leading Russian cement producer against foreign imports since August 2013.

When the 3Mt/yr Podgorensky plant reached its full production capacity in July 2013, Eurocement president Mikhail Skorokhod gave a press conference to promote his products over the imports from Iran and Turkey. Some of the more humorous comments Skorokhod made to the press included suggesting that Iranian cement might be radioactive and the revelation that the title of Eurocement's in-house magazine, 'All Shades of Grey', might be inspired by an erotic novel with a similar name ('50 Shades of Grey').

More seriously, Russia's southern regions between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea are vulnerable to foreign imports. Both Turkey and Iran have high cement production capacities and they have access to the country via these two seas. In addition to rising housing construction in Russia since 2010, cement demand is expected to further take a boost from building associated with the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

As stated by Skorokhod, the Podgorensky cement plant was created to fight foreign imports. Hence the focus on standards and government approval. The cement types in question - TSEM I 52.5N and TSEM II/ A-Sh 42.5N - were certified by NIIMosstroy (the Moscow Construction Research Institute) with additional testing conducted by the Voronezh Regional Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology. The move was similar to attempts made in recent years by local producers in southern and eastern Africa to focus consumers' minds on quality versus the potential risks of low-cost imports.

Eurocement clearly wants to fight imports head on given that, according to CMPRO data, total cement imports to Russia nearly doubled from 2.8Mt in 2011 to 5.1Mt in 2012. Turkey, Belarus and Iran were the main importers in 2012. In 2012 cement imports as a percentage of consumption hit their highest level since 2008. At the same time Russian consumption of cement rose by 13% to 65Mt in 2012 from 58Mt in 2012.

Back in August 2013, Skorokhod said that the Podgorensky plant had cut imports to the southern ports. With no figures available yet for imports in 2013 we can only wait and see.

Russia: André Martin has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Lafarge Russia effective from 16 September 2013. He had been the Senior VP, Industrial Customer Segment at Lafarge corporate head office in Paris since 2012. Martin replaces Alex de Valukhoff.

A graduate of French management school ESSEC, Martin joined Lafarge in 1995 as cement M&A in Central and Eastern Europe manager. Highlights in his career include becoming president of Lafarge-Agregate-Betoane in Romania in 1999 and joining Lafarge-Beton de Paris as President in 2002. In 2005 André Martin moved to North America as VP Marketing Aggregates and Asphalt & Paving at Lafarge and he became President at Lafarge East US Aggregates & Asphalt in 2008.

Russia: France's Lafarge, the world's largest cement producer, has announced that it has appointed André Martin to the position of chief executive in its Russian division. He replaces Alex de Valukhoff.

"To come to Russia and serve as the CEO of Lafarge Russia is an honour I find humbling and motivating," said Martin to the Moscow Times. "Together with the team of professionals we are committed to contributing to the building of better cities."

Martin joined Lafarge in 1995, initially working in cement mergers and acquisitions before rising to the post of president of Lafarge-Agregate-Betoane in Romania in 1999. He has also worked for Lafarge in North America. Most recently Martin was the senior vice president for Lafarge's industrial customer segment in Paris.

Russia: Former President and CEO of SibCem Andrey Muraviev has been nominated for the holding company's board of directors. SibCem shareholders hoped that their decision would help the Russian cement producer to recover its market share and financial performance.

Muraviev is a US-educated Russian entrepreneur, who ran SibCem since 2004 and led the company as its president for its first four years until 2008. During these years, the company brought under its umbrella all the cement assets it controls, stepped up investment in innovative technologies and made an initial public offering.

SibCem was Russia's second largest cement producer by mid-2008. Muraviev quit as CEO in August 2008 over disagreements with SibCem's Chairman Oleg Sharykin. Muraviev is currently President of Parus Capital, a Russia-dedicated investment fund which is a member of the Investor Rights Protection Association.

"I believe SibCem is now one of the most undervalued cement companies the world. I see the main reasons for this in its low transparency and poor corporate governance, lack of new assets and inefficient personnel management," commented Muraviev on his possible return to Sibir Cement. Since Muraviev left in 2008 the company has had its entire top management team and all its directors replaced. SibCem's annual revenues also declined by 75%.

Russia: Nikolay Skornyakov has been appointed chief executive officer of Zhigulevskie Stroymaterialy plant, part of the Eurocement Group. Previously, Skornyakov was the technical director of the cement plant located in Zhigulewsk in Samara.

Skornyakov was born in 1950 in Ulyanovsk. In 1980 he graduated from the Belgorod State Technological Institute of Construction Materials focusing on chemical technology binders. He has since worked in the cement industry for about 40 years, starting at a plant in Ulyanovsk in 1969 as an electrician. In 2001 he was appointed technical director of the Ulyanovsk plant subsequently becoming first deputy chief executive officer.

In 2005 Skornyakov became chief executive officer of the Pikalevskiy plant. In 2006 he became the deputy chief executive office – technical director of the Mikhailovcement plant in the Ryazan region. Since 2009 Skornyakov has been the deputy chief executive officer - technical director of the Zhigulevskie Stroymaterialy plant.

Romania: The Romanian unit of Lafarge has appointed Sonia Artinian as its new country CEO. She is in charge of the French group's cement, aggregates and concrete business in Romania. Artinian replaces Philippe Questiaux, who had managed Lafarge's cement activity in Romania since 2002.

Russia: Vladimir Petrov has been appointed as General Director of Pikalevskiy Cement, a part of Russia's Eurocement Group.

Ukraine: The Balakleya-based Eurocement-Ukraine company dismissed its director general Demis Halchev on 31 January 2011 after a tenure of around three years in the post. According to a report, the position is now vacant.